


Girl and Go

by MiraMira



Category: Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn
Genre: Dysfunctional Relationships, F/F, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Infidelity, POV First Person, Post-Canon, Revenge, Unreliable Narrator, child endangerment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-17
Updated: 2015-10-17
Packaged: 2018-04-26 20:53:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5020147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiraMira/pseuds/MiraMira
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Amy Elliott Dunne is bored, and looking for a new challenge.  She may finally have met her match.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Girl and Go

**Author's Note:**

  * For [goldfinch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldfinch/gifts).



> I know there's no way you were expecting fluff from this pairing, goldfinch, but I really hope I haven't inadvertently stumbled on any DNWs. If so, I'm sorry. Please believe that they were not intended in malice, and rather the result of me trying to capture the mutually messed-up dynamic these two require.
> 
> For anyone reading this, this story probably won't make much sense without having read the book or seen the movie, and it is true to the spirit of the work in that no one involved is a very nice or particularly good person, or at least is capable of staying that way for long. Please heed the tags.

_**Amazing Mommy! , January 9**_

_Beloved blog readers, can I be completely open with you for a moment? I've been thinking a lot recently about something I was told when Nick and I set off along the journey to parenthood: “When you have a child, you hand fate a hostage.” I admit, at the time, I didn't know how true that would be..._

When I took my precaution, I thought I had anticipated all the complications. It's not that I didn't know there would be a hostage involved. I was counting on it. I just didn't realize it would be me.

You see, it turns out that when you call up your publishing house to let them know that your doctor has given you the all-clear on your C-section recovery and you are ready to resume your book tour, brand-new family in tow, the marketing team does not respond with unfettered delight. They pause. They ask if you're sure you wouldn't rather take some time to bond in the comfort and security of your own home. And then, after much wheedling, they admit that they don't see your presence doing much to revive flagging sales. That they think “Dunne fatigue” may have set in among the public. Nobody wants to hear what happened after “happily ever after” if it's just more happiness.

Hence the blog. It was my agent's idea, though I saw the potential at once. A cute picture here, a carefully curated platitude there, and voila! Goodbye, Amy the Survivor; hello, parenting guru and personal success coach. Why settle for influencing schoolchildren's ethics by way of Mom and Dad when I can guide them through every stage of life?

Except that to sell the lifestyle, I have to live it. And even with the book advance and royalties, moving to New York still isn't feasible yet. So while Nick continues to tend The Bar (or hides in the back from customers who feel compelled to defend my honor), I play the role of suburban stay-at-home mom. I cultivate my relationships with Noelle and her mommy friends, I provide my son with as much mental stimulation as a pre-verbal child can absorb, and day by day, another little part of me dies.

Don't get me wrong. Joey is everything I could have hoped for by blending Nick's genes with mine: a child no one could resist. He meets or exceeds all developmental milestones to date, and is almost alarmingly well-behaved. He even slept through the night right from the start, although Nick will insist on checking on him anyway.

Which brings me to the real problem. Joey was supposed to be my insurance. But the first time Nick held him, our eyes connected for an instant. And in that one second that he either couldn't control or didn't care to, all the love and adoration he'd just been lavishing on our son vanished. _I don't care what happens to me,_ that look said. _If you do anything to harm him, I will find a way to destroy you first._

I think he might find a way to do it, too.

This was not the plan. I am right back where I started, only more so: stuck in Missouri with a husband who refuses to put me first. Something needs to change, and soon, or I may have to start getting creative.

_**Amazing Mommy! , February 1**_

_Thank you all so much for the outpouring of thoughtful responses to my recent musings. I'm particularly touched by those of you who expressed concern, but I'm fine, I promise! Dwelling on life's big questions from time to time helps me keep things in perspective._

_I admit, though, I would be lost without the support I get from you and family. There's Nick, of course, but I don't think I've spent nearly enough time telling you about his sister, Margo..._

I don't know what to think about Go any more.

As I think I've made clear in the past, Go...no, I refuse to continue referring to a grown adult by that ridiculous nickname when there's no one around who'll object. Margo has always been a bit of a dangling thread in my relationship with Nick. My inability to see the appeal of siblings aside, being a blood relation doesn't seem to provide immunity from the competitive instincts my husband arouses in virtually any heterosexual woman with a pulse. We were never more of a presence in each other's lives than we could help before what happened, and after...I never expected to see her without Nick standing an anxious glance away again, if that.

Recently, though, she's started showing up at the house at times while Nick's on shift and she's not. At first, naturally, I thought he'd sent her. But it seemed too clumsy a gambit even for him. And as I should have realized, Margo cannot easily be talked into things she has not already decided to do.

I finally asked her, yesterday, what she was getting out of all this. We were playing chess, after my suggestion of go as a parlor game was shot down with a gentle snort and a “never heard that before.”

She paused, knight poised just above the square my rook currently occupied. “I want to know my nephew,” she said at last as she set it down and swept up her prize. It didn't matter. I could still tell I was going to win. “And, well...I suppose I wanted to understand what else Nick gets out of this.”

I didn't bother to ask her what she meant. “Do you?”

Another, thoughtful pause. Then she smiled. “Maybe.” 

Margo doesn't smile much. A part of me wants to say it made her look like Nick, back when he could be charming without having to think it through. But there was something sharper there, and at the same time, more vulnerable: like a wild animal that just might let you pet it if you can work up the courage. Something all the more rewarding because it's a challenge.

It's been too long since I had a fun challenge.

_**Amazing Mommy! , April 16**_

_Readers, if I may, I'd like to set a goal for you: do something different. Anything. Book that vacation you've been thinking about. Sign up for that class. Hit the gym in the morning instead of the afternoon when you're too tired, or have that extra cookie. A little variety will reap untold dividends for your everyday routine..._

Why, oh why, did I think I needed to train the perfect husband, when the person who really gets me was right there all along? With Margo, there are no games except the ones I choose to play, and she jumps straight in. I may have left the first hints, but she grasped them immediately. A single raised eyebrow, followed by, “So that's how it's going to be?”, and suddenly my bottom lip was between her teeth.

Allow me to indulge in rhapsody on Margo's passion a moment longer. It's not just that she knows how women's bodies work. Nick is so cautious these days: afraid to wake Joey, afraid of saying the wrong thing about my post-baby figure, afraid I'll be unsatisfied. He doesn't dare not to offer, and I can only turn him down so many times without triggering a panic, but deep down, we're both relieved when we can find a reason to say “no.” Margo leaves no marks that might arouse suspicion, but she is anything but inhibited or reluctant.

I'm almost beginning to wonder if I should let Nick have his divorce. It would be a new spin for my personal narrative: single mom manages to have it all. I'll bet I could come up with a better term for our arrangement than “conscious uncoupling.” Of course, I'd have to convince him there isn't a catch first. It's been hard enough persuading him to attend the Missouri Restaurant Owners' convention for a few days next month by himself. And even when it's done, how will I explain only bringing Margo to New York with me?

I may be getting ahead of myself. No matter. I'll figure it out. I am, after all, nothing if not resourceful.

_**Amazing Mommy! , May 4**_

_Dearest readers, I am so, so sorry to do this, but I'm posting this update to let you know that I can't say when the next one will be. I can't get into the details right now, but please keep us in your thoughts..._

They transferred me from lock-up to general population three days ago. I don't like to be defeatist, but I'm starting to believe that I may be here a while.

It already feels like years and not less than a week since the evening I awoke from an impromptu nap to the sound of an almost inhuman keening. I think Nick may have broken off his wail long enough to shout at me to call 911 as I stumbled into the nursery, still groggy. But all I remember is staring down at Joey, his eyes shut tight despite the commotion, his lips blue, his breathing much too shallow, and the way my own heart skipped a beat in response as I realized I had no idea how to react.

I've never felt anything like that before. It was...unpleasant.

Then came the hours of waiting at the hospital: first for the doctors to confirm that Joey would live, then that there would be no lasting damage (“as far as we can tell,” they said), then the test results as they tried to piece together what happened. 

We didn't hear those results from them. The police broke that news to us, separately. Nick went in first. I only saw him for a second as they brought me over to take his place in the interrogation room (“for privacy,” they said), but when I wake up and have to remind myself where I am every morning, his burning eyes are one of the first things I remember. 

That was when they showed me the footage from the nanny cam. Of a blonde woman in a dress very like one of mine, all other details of her appearance obscured. Of her cradling Joey in her arms, then easing something – presumably the bupropion they found in his system - down his tiny throat.

She must have slipped something into my wine as well, before slipping out of bed and into her disguise. No footage of that, of course; I was all too effective at thwarting Nick's surveillance and counter-counter surveillance. And naturally, no one bothered to test me. The female officer Nick spent so much time talking with after I came home could barely contain her glee as she read me my rights.

I haven't said anything, not even to the lawyer they brought in. I haven't figured out what to say yet that doesn't lead back to the questions over my disappearance. One life-altering tragedy overcome at a terrible cost is an inspiration. Two, and I start to look less like Amazing Amy and more like Dubious Dunne. Or worse, a fool.

The only way to shut down the skeptical murmurs would be if I could count on Nick lending me the reputation I rebuilt for him, telling the world he'll stand by me the way I stood by him in his worst hour. But Nick would never do that for the woman who hurt Joey. And he will never believe that woman wasn't me. Never believe his twin capable of such an act. Never forgive me for driving her to it, even if he did. And never, ever believe she had it in her all along.

She had it in her to kill me, too. She didn't. That means something. I have to believe it does.

My only other consolation is that she'll never tell him, either. He might blame me, but he couldn't be around her if he knew, let alone trust Joey with her. Which means every happy family outing, every expression of affection or gratitude for their time together, will be accompanied for her by memories of the the price she paid for it. Memories of me.

Until I find a way out, I suppose that will have to be enough.


End file.
